PF Photography: Tips, Tricks, & Photo Sharing

[Andre]

I have played around with panorama software before and found it a bit awkward. I don't always carry a tripod (or have the time to set one up if I'm out hiking). Changing light and things blowing in the wind can make it hard to match the images up properly. For the kind of things I like to photograph, I'm pretty sure an ultra-wide would be a good investment for me.

If you compose a panorama, make sure to shoot manual on fixed Shutter speed, aperture and ISO and also in raw to prevent possible differences in processing.

 

[binzing]

Here's the other two shots I mentioned. Still at Skamakowa Park in Washington State on the Columbia.

 

[larkspur]

It has been a while since I posted here. I have been contacted by a graphics company that wants to use one of my waterfall photos for a tourism card that will be placed at all the rest stops in the state. Not much but it is a start. The funny thing is that it is a shot of one of the lesser known falls. Just goes to show you that a photo you think is insignificant maybe more appreciated by someone else.

 

[turbo]

It has been a while since I posted here. I have been contacted by a graphics company that wants to use one of my waterfall photos for a tourism card that will be placed at all the rest stops in the state. Not much but it is a start. The funny thing is that it is a shot of one of the lesser known falls. Just goes to show you that a photo you think is insignificant maybe more appreciated by someone else.

Congratulations! My satisfactions come from lower-level appreciation. Several times today, I had to flap my arms and hoot to get the ducks to get out of the road so other vehicles could pass. Each time, the people driving the vehicles (trucks, SUVs, snowmobiles) gave me a thumbs-up, and most stopped to have a word or two. I'm down with the ducks. Some of them wandered over near my Forester while I backed off to try to get some shots from better vantage-points, but they were not quite brave enough to jump in and raid the bread-bags. Cute!

 

[lisab]

It has been a while since I posted here. I have been contacted by a graphics company that wants to use one of my waterfall photos for a tourism card that will be placed at all the rest stops in the state. Not much but it is a start. The funny thing is that it is a shot of one of the lesser known falls. Just goes to show you that a photo you think is insignificant maybe more appreciated by someone else.

That's great, larkspur! Congrats!

 

[larkspur]

That's great, larkspur! Congrats!

Thanks Lisab.

 

[larkspur]

Congratulations! My satisfactions come from lower-level appreciation. Several times today, I had to flap my arms and hoot to get the ducks to get out of the road so other vehicles could pass. Each time, the people driving the vehicles (trucks, SUVs, snowmobiles) gave me a thumbs-up, and most stopped to have a word or two. I'm down with the ducks. Some of them wandered over near my Forester while I backed off to try to get some shots from better vantage-points, but they were not quite brave enough to jump in and raid the bread-bags. Cute!

Thanks turbo.

Did you get that arm flapping on video?

 

[turbo]

Thanks turbo.

Did you get that arm flapping on video?

No. I was shooting the ducks, but nobody was shooting me. I'd run at the ducks with my arms flapping and they would fly toward the stream, and when the offending vehicle passed, I'd coax them back to the road - not a hard task!

 

[Borek]

I have been contacted by a graphics company that wants to use one of my waterfall photos for a tourism card that will be placed at all the rest stops in the state.

Great

Please keep us posted, I would love to buy National Geographic with your pictures

 

[turbo]

Sunday, my little brother brought his baby girl to the mill-stream to see the ducks. She had a blast. At 13+ months, she doesn't talk much yet, but whenever she sees a picture of a duck in her story-books, she says "Quack, quack". Try as we might, we couldn't get her to say "quack" to the ducks. Instead, she insisted on using her dog sound-effect - "woof, woof". What a nut!

 

[Borek]

Sunday, my little brother brought his baby girl to the mill-stream to see the ducks. She had a blast. At 13+ months, she doesn't talk much yet, but whenever she sees a picture of a duck in her story-books, she says "Quack, quack". Try as we might, we couldn't get her to say "quack" to the ducks. Instead, she insisted on using her dog sound-effect - "woof, woof". What a nut!

That's part of her cuteness, isn't it? :!)

 

[turbo]

That's part of her cuteness, isn't it? :!)

A big part. It's hard to tell if she was playing games with us and being contrary, or making a pretty good joke (for a 1-year-old).

 

[Ms Music]

Congratulations Larkspur! One picture is a good start. Feels good to have something out there in the public view, doesn't it!

Anyone want to give me a crash course on these ND filters? I fell in love when you guys were talking about them last month... I finally took the time to start looking for replacement lenses for my broken and stolen lenses. Found one for sale last week on Craigslist, and guess what else he was selling with it? So I finally have a lens to go with my camera, AND an ND filter. Both my daughter and I are itching to go try it out.

Suggestions? (Manual settings isn't my strong point after all these years, so I can't remember what the best settings are any more - appreciate the tips)

I will post here what we do shoot. (well, if it is worth sharing...)

 

[larkspur]

Great

Please keep us posted, I would love to buy National Geographic with your pictures

Thanks Borek.

Congratulations Larkspur! One picture is a good start. Feels good to have something out there in the public view, doesn't it!

Anyone want to give me a crash course on these ND filters? I fell in love when you guys were talking about them last month... I finally took the time to start looking for replacement lenses for my broken and stolen lenses. Found one for sale last week on Craigslist, and guess what else he was selling with it? So I finally have a lens to go with my camera, AND an ND filter. Both my daughter and I are itching to go try it out.

Suggestions? (Manual settings isn't my strong point after all these years, so I can't remember what the best settings are any more - appreciate the tips)

I will post here what we do shoot. (well, if it is worth sharing...)

Thanks Ms M.

What kind of ND filter do you have? Is it a graduated ND filter?
The manual settings depend on what effect you want. If you are taking a photo of a butterfly on a flower and wish the background to be out of focus, then use aperture priority so you can lock in what f stop you want(probably f/5.6 or f/8.)

When I photograph moving birds I use shutter priority mode and set it for a fast shutter speed to avoid motion blur. Most of the time I try to get s shutter of 1/2000 sec and that usually keeps my 400mm lens wide open at f/5.6.

When I shoot waterfalls, I use manual mode and usually use the smallest aperture I have on the lens. Many times f/32. I also attach as many filters I can to help keep the shutter open as long as possible without over exposure. This would be a great time to use a ND filter. A tripod and a timed shutter release or a remote release cord is a must.
I generally use the same method for landscapes.

 

[larkspur]

Sunday, my little brother brought his baby girl to the mill-stream to see the ducks. She had a blast. At 13+ months, she doesn't talk much yet, but whenever she sees a picture of a duck in her story-books, she says "Quack, quack". Try as we might, we couldn't get her to say "quack" to the ducks. Instead, she insisted on using her dog sound-effect - "woof, woof". What a nut!

She is adorable turbo!

 

[turbo]

She is adorable turbo!

Thanks, larkspur! She always seems to have a smile on her face, or some other hammy expression.

Here she is, watching ducks from my younger brother's shoulders.

 

[Ms Music]

What kind of ND filter do you have? Is it a graduated ND filter?

I had to call home, I didn't even know the brand... Heliopan ND 0.6. I don't know about graduated, I really don't know anything about them! Water is more what I was thinking of shooting. It is supposed to be cloudy this weekend, so I thought we could go down to the shore, and maybe go for a walk in the woods by where I grew up and see if I could find the waterfall I shot as a kid. I didn't have an ND back then, but we slowed it wayyy down and it worked almost as well.

So what kind of effect does it have on a butterfly and flower? I thought it was for motion? (water/clouds...)

Shows how ignorant I am.

 

[turbo]

I had to call home, I didn't even know the brand... Heliopan ND 0.6. I don't know about graduated, I really don't know anything about them! Water is more what I was thinking of shooting. It is supposed to be cloudy this weekend, so I thought we could go down to the shore, and maybe go for a walk in the woods by where I grew up and see if I could find the waterfall I shot as a kid. I didn't have an ND back then, but we slowed it wayyy down and it worked almost as well.

So what kind of effect does it have on a butterfly and flower? I thought it was for motion? (water/clouds...)

Shows how ignorant I am.

There are a lot of things you can do without filters. If you have a multi-mode digital camera, you can mount it on a tripod, set it in Aperture Priority (or equivalent) mode and stop the camera WAY down. This will make the scenery as crisp as can be and blur the waterfalls. If there is a gusty, wind blowing the trees around, they will be blurred along with the water. This is not a really bad thing, if you like the looks of photographs created with pin-hole cameras.

 

[Ms Music]

Cool info guys! Thanks!

By the way, I googled graduated. Now I got to get me one of THOSE before my summer vacation.

No, this one isn't graduated. But now I want one!

 

[Borek]

Something is changing, I can feel it in the air

 

[hypatia]

Awww how cool is that? Pussywillows!

 

[turbo]

Awww how cool is that? Pussywillows!

I don't know what kinds of shrubs have pussywillow eruptions in the spring, but I have decided to find some and mark them with bits of flagging tape so that next winter I can cut some sprigs in the winter and bring them inside to bloom in vases with water in them, much like we did when our neighbor brought forsythia cuttings to us last month. Gotta plan ahead!

 

[Borek]

Each year in the spring we are just cutting some small branches of whatever we can find, to put them into water.

Birch is great, it has a cute, tiny leaves. But most trees/shrubs have nice leaves when they start to grow.

 

[Andre]

The Netherlands this morning shortly after Sunrise:

and the sunset today behind the city of The Hague

 

[Ms Music]

I love the 2nd one! Where the sun has partly sunk below the horizon.

 

[Borek]

Ah, joys of living over the ground level

 

[turbo]

Great sunset, Andre. Nice sequence.

 

[Ms Music]

I'm FRUSTRATED! I bought some hyacinths over the weekend, and thought it would be fun to capture the lovely colors. One is a blue hyacinth, and it is actually a very DEEP dark purple, almost a black. But when I take a picture, it turns out BLUE.

I have tried changing the lighting settings, the white balance, the red and green levels, and nothing gives me the true color. Its either WAY too much red (and the off white walls in the background turn yellow), or WAY too much blue. Any suggestions? (and yes, most of my lights are flourescent, I know that causes the yellow, but I can't understand why all the lighting temperatures are to the extremes?) Should I take off the UV filter? (just thought of that one)

I haven't downloaded any of the pics that I took, but here are some examples from the net (if they work)

The color that the flowers ARE:
http://z.about.com/d/landscaping/1/0/z/O/pansy_black_large.jpg

And approximately the tone the picture turns out as:

(hope I am not violating any copyrights with those links... They are just for examples, they are NOT my photos)

 

[matthyaouw]

We might be able to help some more if you show us some examples of your pictures.

Just a thought- when your camera meters, it assumes everything is a neutral mid-grey shade. If you meter on something dark, it will overexpose. If you meter on something light, it will underexpose. Maybe it's overexposing the dark petals. How does the rest of your photo look? Light, dark or ok? Ignore this if I'm telling you stuff you already know
Also, what camera are you using to take the pictures?

 

[Borek]

Try to put a piece of white paper between flowers, take a picture and show it here. Camera settings doesn't matter, put it in some fully automatic mode. No promises, but I can be able to check if correctly applied white balance does the trick.